Audubon never did become a conservationist as the word is understood these days. Even as he picked oft his huge toll of feathered specimens, he was aware that his beloved frontier world was rapidly vanishing about him. He did not pretend to say whether the changes were for the better or for the worse. He only knew with passionate conviction that no one coming after him would ever have the same opportunity to record the birds of North America in their primeval haunts, and that realization drove him mercilessly to finish his inventory before it was too late.